The Juvenile in the Gang-Rape Case

Police escort the juvenile (center) accused in the December 2012 gang-rape in Delhi, on July 25, 2013.

A court in New Delhi has ruled that the juvenile accused in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in Delhi in mid-December, participated in the crime.

The Juvenile Justice Board in New Delhi handed down the verdict, the first in the gang rape case, Saturday. The teenager was sentenced to three years in a special juvenile correction facility.

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The media hasn’t been allowed entry into the proceedings against him or been permitted to see the details of the verdict. He cannot be named for legal reasons.

Here’s what we do know about the juvenile, who was 17 at the time of his arrest on charges of kidnapping, rape and murder. He recently turned 18 but was tried as a juvenile because of his age when the crime took place.

He is the eldest of six children, three sisters and two brothers. His parents are agricultural laborers and he left home 11-and-a-half years ago, moving from a village in the Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh to New Delhi, according to The Indian Express newspaper, which interviewed his mother after the juvenile was arrested.

So he was only around 6 years old when he moved. His family heard he’d been working as a waiter in east Delhi but then lost touch with him, his mother said. “I thought he was dead,” she told the newspaper.

A police report following his arrest said the juvenile was popular as a helper on buses because he was skillful at attracting fares in a “singsong way.”

There was confusion about the exact age of the suspect following his arrest and uncertainty about whether he should be tried in an adult court along with five other suspects, or as a juvenile.

In India, the Juvenile Justice Act deals with cases involving accused who are under 18 years old. If the charges against a juvenile are proved, the maximum sentence for any crime is three years, which is served in a special juvenile correction facility.

The Juvenile Justice Act refers to juveniles with allegations proved against them as being “in conflict with the law” rather than describing them as guilty.

The four men accused in the case and on trial in an adult court in South Delhi, face a possible death sentence if found guilty. A fifth suspect, Ram Singh, was found dead in his cell at Tihar Jail in March. Prison authorities said he killed himself, but his lawyer and family claim he was murdered. An investigation continues.

Although these tests cannot pinpoint age exactly, they are widely used in India where many people don’t know how old they are and where it is fairly easy to buy fake certificates.

However, the Juvenile Justice Board declared the suspect to be a minor based on his school enrolment records verified by his former school principal and a bone test was not carried out.

The juvenile pleaded not guilty to the charges against him during the Juvenile Justice Board hearing.

India raised its definition of a juvenile to 18 from 16 in 2000 under the Juvenile Justice Act. Doing so was part of the nation’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which it signed in 1992. There were calls, following the serious allegations against this juvenile, to lower the age at which a person can be tried in an adult court back to 16.

The government asked a panel, headed by former Chief Justice J. S. Verma, to look at the issue as part of its report recommending legal overhauls to improve women’s safety after the December rape.

In its report, published in January, the panel concluded that the upper age for juveniles should remain at 18 in order to comply with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and to make allowance for significant changes in the brain structure and function of adolescents, which could have a bearing on their behavior. Justice Verma died in April. He was 80.

The Supreme Court dismissed eight petitions brought by members of the public to lower the age limit for a juvenile. The top court is still considering a subsequent petition from politician Subramanian Swamy, asking it to consider the mental and intellectual maturity of a defendant, instead of his or her age in the case of young people involved in very serious crimes.

In March, acting on the recommendations of the Verma report, the government passed legislation strengthening sexual assault laws. The legislation included tougher punishments for rape crimes and widened the definition of sexual assault to include offenses such as stalking and voyeurism.

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